


Liar

by Empatheia



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-01
Updated: 2006-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empatheia/pseuds/Empatheia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the far end of desperation there is a chance of transformation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Liar

 

The boy was dying. He stood shaking in a pool of his own blood, holding his sword up with a blue-white arm. The enemies around him, southern demons and ugly as sin, were less pathetically weak than usual, and many, so that even the boy's extraordinary strength was close to exhausted. His clothing might have once been white.

He was a demon, that much was blindingly clear. Tall and straight-backed, with silver hair nearly to his knees, he was far more beautiful than any human could ever hope to be. There were sharp lacerations of indigo scoring his cheeks in a double line — his clan marking. They were also on his wrists and ankles, and less visibly his thighs. There was no possible way to mistake what he was.

The watcher, a demon himself and possibly just as beautiful, stood easily balanced on a swaying tree branch, watching the tragic scene impassively.

One eye swollen half-shut and clogged with blood, the demon boy with moonbeams for hair struggled to keep his sword up. Licking their lips, the hideous inferior demons advanced, hardly even winded. A good three dozen of their kin lay in confused pieces, strewn about the little meadow.

The demon man watched and savored the aura of courage and doom that hung over the meadow. It was intoxicating.

The boy was truly beautiful, like this: standing stubbornly upright under the weight of the black sword against the back of his neck. Even still, his eyes like tainted diamonds flashed and whirled, and his teeth were bared and defiant.

The demons advanced.

The watcher found himself caught, unexpectedly, in a dilemma. The boy was far too beautiful to simply die here, without any to witness his glory. And the opponents were not worthy. However, the watcher did not like to involve himself in things like this — it seemed to spoil the mood, somehow. To let die, or not? An interesting puzzle.

"Hmph," he said to himself, and drew his sword. He was bored anyways.

The boy, as though sensing imminent rescue, seemed to find a reservoir of strength from somewhere and began to flail clumsily with the sword once again. He could not have been more than four hundred years old. The watcher was not really that much older than him, a few centuries at most, but he was polished where the boy was not; experienced where the boy was raw and untested.

With the ease of long practice, he soared from his tree branch and became a vengeful violet comet amidst the inferior ranks of the southerners. Red complemented his colouring well, and he was rarely averse to covering himself in it. And soon, indeed, he was covered. It soaked into the tightly furled braids of his deeply purple hair, framed his jewelesque green eyes. Red was a beautiful color. It was too bad he was wearing black; blood did not show up well against things darker than it.

It was over quickly. The watcher was mildy disappointed at being denied some decent exercise. For a moment, he wished he could revive the squadron and slaughter them again, more satisfyingly. If wishes were fishes... It was not to be. He sighed and accepted the boringness of the expedition, and then turned to the trembling, defiant boy. Apparently, the boy had lost so much blood he was no longer coherent, for the next moment he swung his sword with all the desperate strength of those near to death... in the wrong direction. The watcher parried easily despite being taken halfway by surprise.

"Stop waving that around, you're more likely to take your own foot off the way you're carrying on," the watcher said irritably.

The boy's fiery gaze did not diminish in the slightest, but the sword sank to the ground with a thud and did not move again. It was now taking everything he had just to stand.

"I will not... surrender," the boy gasped.

"Surrender? To whom? Look around, boy — there's nobody left to surrender _to_."

"My lord Father," the ragged mouth whispered, seeming to not have heard. "I am sorry." Gracelessly, he collapsed and lay deathly still in a pool of blood and curling moonbeams. The sun labored downwards against its upward impetus. It would set in about an hour, the watcher guessed.

Sighing in a long-suffering way, he hoisted the limp, bony weight of the boy onto his shoulder and set off for shelter. Somewhen, for vague and unimportant reasons, he'd set his mind on saving the boy. Really, truly saving him, in every way possible. When the watcher was done with him, he'd never need saving again.

The boy woke up like the sun rising- slowly and gloriously. Upon discovering the watcher several feet away, he started convulsively and made as if to draw the sword that was no longer fastened to the belt that was no longer there. His ruined torso was carefully, expertly bound with strips of his own __haori__ , and the sword was lying innocently several feet away.

"Who are you?" the boy cried, fiercely concealing his fear.

Stretching languidly and crossing lean legs, the watcher drawled his answer. "My name, if that's what you meant, is Ryuukossei. And you, if I'm not mistaken, are an __inuyoukai__ from the West. You're a long way from home, boy."

The boy drew himself up proudly into a crosslegged position, ignoring the pain. "I am not a ' _boy.'_ My _name_ is Inutaisho. And you, if I am not mistaken, are a __ryuuyoukai__ from the East. You are also a long ways from home."

Amused, Ryuukossei slapped a hand on his armor-clad knee. "That I am, _boy_. That I am."

"Stinking lizard! Call me by name or suffer the consequences!"

The dragon demon stared for a moment disbelievingly, and then burst into appreciative laughter. "I didn't think people said things like that anymore. How amusing."

Inutaisho flushed a fierce red and averted his face so that his pale locks fell straggling across his cheek. "When Father says those things, it sounds intimidating," he explained sheepishly.

The dragon threw his head back a laughed, long and freely, until tears flowed brightly down his cheeks. "Ah, boy, you _are_ interesting. I'm almost glad I saved you."

"You mean... oh." Kneeling gracefully, Inutaisho bowed deeply. "I thank you for your assistance. Is there a way in which I can repay you?"

Ryuukossei raised one thin purple eyebrow and appeared to consider. "Well... if you really want to repay me..."

"I owe you my life. Name your conditions."

The dragon snapped his fingers cheerfully. "Well then! You have to let me train you for one year."

Seeing the utterly confused look on the gangly dog demon's angular face, he explained further.

"If I ever have to rescue you again, I don't want to have to worry about losing my head to _your_ sword."

Gratifyingly, Inutaisho blushed.

"I agree... __sensei_._ "

A broad, toothy smile devoured Ryuukossei's sharp face. "Good. Pick up your sword."

" _Now?_ "

"Something stopping you?"

"N-no, sir." The boy, still pale enough for every blue vein to show through clearly, picked up his sword in a shaking clawed hand and stood. "Ready whenever you are, _ _sensei_._ "

**x**

"Why are you travelling?" Ryuukossei asked his student one day.

"Why are you?" Inutaisho replied quietly — and that was the end of that.

Most of the time, everything important to say could be said through the singing of folded steel and the harsh gasp of overtaxed breath. The other times, when the language of death was not enough, they stumbled around on tottering words and lost sight of whatever it had been that was so important in the first place.

Those were clean days.

**x**

When next they saw each other, it was centuries later. The boy had grown and lost almost all of his gangly ungrace, and the dragon had gained something of sobriety.

 _"Sensei!_ " Inutaisho gasped, when he caught sight of the distinctive violet braids and flashing green eyes.

"Boy!" Ryuukossei cried, boisterously overjoyed to see his favorite pupil again. Then he stopped, perplexed. Something had changed — the teasing nickname no longer felt right. "Inutaisho," he corrected, and frowned. Interesting.

The years had made them both more beautiful, but Inutaisho especially. Where before he had been all graceless limbs and awkward height, now he was exactly proportioned muscle and sinew. Where before his face had held something of childish softness and innocence, now there were only angles and strength. He was glorious in his adulthood, and Ryuukossei stood for a moment in silence to appreciate it.

He did not know what the years had done to him — elongated lines that once were cramped, created lines and furrows where before there had been only carefree expanses of innocent skin. Change had not left him alone and unblemished, either.

"What are you doing here?" Inutaisho asked, once he found his voice.

"I'm an emissary," Ryuukossei answered with not a little pride. "My brother sent me to negotiate with the Westlord, your father. Inutaisho, have you been well?"

Inutaisho nodded shortly, then hesitated before saying quietly "As well as could be expected."

Ryuukossei raised an eyebrow questioningly. It may have only been a year, but he knew his student very well. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"Nothing," the bright-haired man answered, a little too quickly to be convincing. "Do not concern yourself with my problems."

"So you _do_ have a problem," the dragon said with satisfaction. "Come on, let's go for a walk. You wouldn't have mentioned it if it you didn't want to talk about it, so let's go."

Accustomed from long months of training to obeying that voice without question, Inutaisho fell into line behind his savior and teacher with hardly a murmur of protest.

When they were far enough away from the compound walls to avoid eavesdroppers, Ryuukossei rounded on his pupil and narrowed his eyes. "Now, out with it."

Inutaisho lowered his head and pretended to find the ground very interesting. "Honestly, __sensei_ ,_ it is nothing you need be concerned about. Family issues, that is all."

The dragon narrowed his eyes ferociously and cracked his knuckles. "I don't remember asking you if you _wanted_ to tell me," he growled, low and dangerous.

Inutaisho gulped and tensed his muscles. "Like I said, it is nothing — my father did not take it too kindly when I vanished for a year without contact or explanation. He was most... displeased, when I returned at last."

_Displeased... furious, more like._

"And...?" Ryuukossei prompted. "Then what?"

"I was severely punished," Inutaisho said simply. "Of course. And ever since then, he has made his displeasure known at every possible opportunity. He was never one to praise me, but of late he has been almost cruel in his actions and attitudes. It is... distressing." The dog demon narrowed his eyes and stared into the sun. "I am sorry to have mentioned it. It does not involve you."

"Inutaisho."

"Yes, __sensei?__ "

Ryuukossei looked away and thought for a moment before answering. "Do you deserve the things he says and does?"

Silver hair fell in a concealing curtain as the dog demon thought. "Well... not really, no."

"They _why,"_ the dragon snarled, seething, "do you allow him to speak to you like that?"

Inutaisho's head snapped up in surprise. "Why, he is my father! How can I speak back to him? It would be disrespectful!"

"He has done nothing to earn your respect that I can see, Inutaisho. Therefore, you have no reason to accord it to him. Listen to me." Striding over and seizing Inutaisho's shoulders, he stared deep into the anguished golden eyes. "No student of mine may bow down and accept such abuse to their honor. Stand and act like the man I taught. I do not know this sniveling weakling — where is my student?"

" _ _Sensei__..." Inutaisho whispered, stricken.

"Don't look at me like I'm crazy. It only makes sense — if he has done nothing worthy of respect, then you are under no obligation to reward him with it. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, __sensei!__ But..."

"I don't like that word. But what?"

"But... I am not certain that I am strong enough to stand against him. If he should choose to retaliate..."

The sentence was cut short as Ryuukossei soundly cuffed the young man's ear. "Useless fear! If you can't even face _this_ enemy, what are you going to do when something truly dangerous comes along? Cry and run for your mother's skirts? Come on, Inutaisho, I _know_ you're better than this."

A long silent moment, full of truth and fear and trust.

"Wait for me here?" Inutaisho said at last, quiet and resigned.

"Where else?"

That earned a smile, though a small and painful one. The dog demon straightened strong young shoulders and walked back the way he'd come. The dragon sat in the exact same place as he'd been standing in and waited.

**x**

When Inutaisho returned, he was hardly recognizable through the swollen flesh and new, strange darkness of his aura. He staggered through the night-dark woods and fell brokenly into Ryuukossei's shocked arms.

"I feel wonderful," he croaked through a half-crushed windpipe. "I have truly never felt better." He slumped into the blessed oblivion, smiling all the way.

Ryuukossei curled around him protectively, blazingly proud and achingly helpless all at once. He had never thought it would go _this_ far. The Lord of the West had a reputation for cruelty, but somehow the dragon had believed he would restrain himself when it came to his son. He'd never been so sorry to be wrong.

"Oh, Taisho," he whispered into bloodsoaked moonbeams. "I'm sorry, so sorry."

"Don't... apologize," a muffled voice answered, to his surprise. Apparently, the dog demon was not quite so unconscious as originally thought. "I told you, I feel wonderful. I stood up to him, and though he beat my body he could not reach the things that were important at all. He was... impotent. I was, in the end, stronger."

Ryuukossei thought he might burst with pride. Though the body of his beloved student lay broken, his spirit had been forged and sharpened into something beautiful by the event he'd just survived. "I'm proud of you," he said out loud, unable to restrain the burgeoning _thing_ in his chest.

"Really?" Inutaisho said faintly. "That makes me very... happy."

"Idiot."

"Why? Praise from someone you respect should make you happy, shouldn't it?"

"You're all bloody and torn up because of what I told you to do, and instead of being resentful, you're _happy!_ Idiot!"

Inutaisho laughed painfully, and turned to rest his head on Ryuukossei's folded knees. The dragon threaded his fingers into the silver hair he loved so much and bit back tears.

"It does not hurt, not much anyways. Please, do not worry. A good night's sleep and I'll be halfway healed already."

"Idiot," Ryuukossei repeated half-heartedly. "You're so stupid."

"Yes," Inutaisho rasped. "By your definitions, very stupid indeed."

They sat that way for a long while, both breathing raggedly and fighting back the pain.

Inutaisho lifted a long pale hand and found the dragon's tanned and scarred one. "Your knees are more comfortable than I might have thought."

"Your head is less heavy than I might have thought," the dragon replied quietly, understanding.

"Ryuukossei," Inutaisho said. A first — always before, he'd adhered strictly to the respectful honorific _sensei._

The dragon stiffened a little at the sound, and closed his eyes.

"Can I stay here, just for tonight? For some reason, I do not want to be anywhere else very much, right now."

"I'm not going anywhere. Do what you will."

"Then I will stay."

And the dragon was glad.

**x**

The next time they met, nine years later, there was nothing left of innocence in either of them.

"Ryuukossei."

"Inutaisho."

A long pause, while they ordered everything between them into a bridge and remembered how to cross.

"...Stinking lizard, where have you been?"

"Mangy dog! Conquering, of course! Where else would I be?"

They smiled and fell into being together because it was natural and right that they should.

"The world has grown boring indeed when I miss you, scaly worm."

"Ha! I felt no such weak emotion! You have grown soft, old friend!"

Inutaisho smiled, a secret, deep smile that Ryuukossei felt in the little tendons of his spine.

"Liar."

And he was.

**X**


	2. Violet, Velvet, Vodka, Silk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've both survived to meet again in the modern day.

There are moments in every life that seem set apart from the everyday ones, moment that shine and have physical presence. They are few and far between, but when they happen the world shifts on its axis for the one who is willing to see.

**x**

Seeing __him__ again was like a blow to Inutaisho's gut. It was so unexpected, so startling, that he stopped right in the middle of the busy street and stared like he'd lost his mind.

How long had it been? A thousand years? Ten? Or maybe just a moment?

 _ _He__ hadn't changed, not much. The hair was the same. That was how Inutaisho recognized him — in a sea of black and shades of brown, the flash of vibrant purple was like a neon sign in a one-horse town. Downtown Tokyo noticed but said nothing. They had seen stranger things in the bowels of the living city.

Just as it had been a millennia ago, his hair was still tightly bound back in disciplined braids, clawing across his skull and whipping down his lean back.

The next thing Inutaisho noticed was the suit. He had only ever seen him in anything but ancient, traditional battle costume, so the tailored business wear was a shock. It looked wrong, somehow, like it was cut and pasted onto his warrior's form. And where was his sword?

Inutaisho looked down wryly at his own sharp attire and smiled a little. Times changed, but people didn't.

"Sensei," he whispered, slowly recalling the syllables of the long-unused word like brushing the dust of a wine bottle to read the label. Treasure. "Sensei!"

The roar of the creature-city drowned him out, and the slash of glorious violet kept moving away, away, away.

Inutaisho could not move his feet.

**x**

He stirred his vodka with a toothpick and stared sightlessly at the silver-flecked granite countertop. There were many reasons the _Midoriko_ was his favourite pub, and memory not the least of them. Everything here reeked of recollection, even the particular shade of red velvet used to upholster the booths

_(her blood was that colour, that colour exactly)_

and the smell of vodka on his breath, subtle but stinging to his demon senses

_(steam and searching fingers, learning, learning each new plain of each new land)_

and haunting strains of shamisen music curling from the speakers

 _(delicate nails like little seashells plucking, caressing the strings)_  

—they all spoke of the lost loves of his long and jagged life.

He came here often just to remember, even though the remembering wounded him all over again. Here, it was like they were there with him again in some facet, though never again whole and laughing as they had once been.

_Mai._

The music was hers, it had always been her favourite thing in the world. He'd often wondered if she loved the shamisen more than him, loved the sounds her own soul made better than those his made when playing her. There was no resentment, only faint regret that he had not been enough. She had deserved to have enough, _more_ than enough. There had never been another more worthy.

He listened to the music and did not cry as she sang through his memory, smiling and so far away.

_Izayoi._

The colours were hers. She had been radiant and glowing, every shade of life in existence. Flowers had been her greatest joy, and he had used to love watching her play in the garden for hours, dancing through the warm grass and laughing for no other reason than sheer joy at the colours all around her.

When she had died, the first time, her blood had been just that shade of crimson velvet that softened the edges of all the sharp blackness the room was constructed of. It was his favourite place in the world because it reminded him of her death... and subsequent rebirth, pale and gasping but alive, and cradling their squalling in-between child in her trembling arms.

He let his vision lose focus and smiled at the blur of vermillion against the black. There were no more tears.

_Sensei... oh, Ryuukossei._

His first and last and in-between love, the only one who had never left forever. The dragon did a lot of leaving, to be sure, but he always, always came back eventually.

The vodka was his, the stinging clear foreign elixir that made memories gain solidity and reality lose its teeth. The gentle teasing edges of its fog belonged to Ryuukossei, and that was the greatest reason Inutaisho kept coming back. The _Midoriko_ served really great vodka. The recipe was almost unchanged from when he'd first tasted it, centuries in the past.

Inutaisho took another sip and relaxed into memory. Reality faded.

**x**

Perhaps it was because of that ever-shifting border between past and present that Inutaisho did not understand the significance of what he saw at first.

The pale face and dancing green eyes belonged to a memory, but they were dissonant to it. The edges weren't quite right, didn't quite jive with what shape he knew they should take. He furrowed his brow and tried to make the jigsaw fit, but it was broken and he failed again.

"Inutaisho," the memory said, and smiled in a way that spoke of too many emotions to count in his dazed state.

"You're a memory," Inutaisho replied with a confident smile. "I remember you."

The memory of Ryuukossei laughed and smiled with brilliant teeth. His fangs were longer than Inutaisho recalled them to be.

"Come on, you drunken sod, let this 'memory' take you home then. You're in no shape to be out and about."

And with that, the shockingly substantial vision wrapped an arm around him and hoisted him easily to his feet. Inutaisho's nose collided with the memory's throat and found that the scent was different, too. It spoke more of offices and crisp white paper than steel and hide and heavy cloth.

They staggered through the still-busy streets and it occurred to Inutaisho to wonder how a vision could catch him when he stumbled with such graceful strength.

"You're not really here... are you?" he asked, curiosity lending clarity to his speech.

The dragon smiled. "Of course I'm here. What do you think is holding you up, thin air?"

"I don't know. But you _aren't_ here."

They reached a small apartment building in a rich area of town not far from the bar. The apartments were spacious and luxurious in a sparse, tidy way that characterized the city perfectly. Square footage in Tokyo equated to wealth, and there was rather a lot of that despite the lack of decoration.

The apartment had only two rooms: first, the enormous greatroom, which had a kitchen, dining area, and oval bedroom encompassed in its broad expanse, and secondly the bathroom, which featured an truly prodigious marble jacuzzi.

"Impressive lodgings," Inutaisho commented. They were better than his, though not by much. "My imagination wants to believe you've done well for yourself, I suppose."

Ryuukossei snarled in frustration. "Do you _still_ believe you're just having a liquor-dream?"

Inutaisho pulled away to stand on his own shaking feet. "Of course," he mumbled. "There's no logical way for you to be here again after all this time. You should be on a different continent... weren't you going to Africa?"

"I did, that was _hundreds of years ago_ , Inutaisho," Ryuukotsusei whispered. "What have you done to yourself? Has time lost all meaning for you?"

"Nothing is real but my memories," he murmured dreamily, swaying. "All of this is just an illusion." He ignored the inarticulate snarl from across the room, clinging to his tenuous belief that nothing could touch him anymore.

Ryuukossei's eyes hardened."Does _this_ feel like an illusion?" he growled then, and strode forward to pull Inutaisho's face to his own.

Their lips collided.

When something elastic that has been stretched nearly beyond recognition is released, the force with which it returns to its true form is one of the great powers of the universe, and that power was present in all its glory.

Inutaisho had almost forgotten what it felt like to be with Ryuukossei, the man who had saved his life once on a whim and had never stopped saving him since then. It was passion and flame, but also contentment and peace. The travails of the world always became surmountable when his beloved brother of the blade was with him. It had been far, far too long.

Helpless in the face of a flood of emotion that had not had an outlet for a thousand years, he draped himself across his dragon's shoulders, fingers tangling in fine dark braids and desperate lips seeking what they had been denied for a crippling length of time.

Strong arms, unwithered by the advent of technology, bound him in an iron embrace that still remembered swords and castles.

"I am here," the dragon growled into him. "I always return, you should know that by now."

"I was afraid," Inutaisho whimpered. "What if you didn't? What if you really _were_ only a memory? I could not bear to think I had found you again, only to realize later that you were still gone after all. Can't you understand?"

"Oh, I can," Ryuukotsusei whispered, teasing a delicate pointed ear with his tongue to Inutaisho's whimpers. "I did the same thing when I saw you in the street the other day, because I couldn't bear being wrong about it. I've missed you so much, it would kill me to gain hope and lose it again so quickly."

"Please," the moon-haired dog demon moaned. "It's been so long, and I am such a mess. I'm broken. Help me, sensei."

"You're not broken, only bent," the dragon admonished, but as he said it he pressed Inutaisho slowly back towards the enormous futon. It was covered in the same, the _exact same_ shade of red, only this time in silk.

Inutaisho surrendered and fell backwards into its cool embrace. Tokyo winters were humid, but a blessed relief from the sweltering heat of summer. The silk and their sweat made it feel just like swimming in shaded bloody water. __

In the pool of crimson silken blood they twined about each other, remembering things long forgotten and creating new, sharper memories. They were not gentle with each other, not this time — their fangs drew blood, and their claws, and their fingers left shadow-violet bruises on glowing flesh.

When they were with those weaker than them — halfbloods, humans — there was always the need to restrain themselves, to hold back for fear of hurting them. There was none of that with each other, and so they punished each other for the long separation and the sins they saw reflected in each other that really belonged to them.

They pierced each other, taking turns at pinning the other helplessly to the crimson silk like pale butterflies stuck with pins. It was a dance of primal depth and fury, and though they were out of practice, it came back quickly enough.

The Tokyo sky glared impassively through the wall-length windows as they healed each other, tearing wound after wound in bleeding soul-flesh.

And when they were finished, gasping for breath and weeping into a mass of silver and violet unbound hair, there was nothing left to fix.

"It would have been better if you hadn't come," Inutaisho groaned, already terrified of the dragon's departure.

"You're lying," Ryuukotsusei answered back, whispering into the crevices of his soul.

And he was.

**X**


End file.
